Entrenched Culture
Some conversations at Integrum reminded me of the story of the Netscape Hockey game (story here at Rands in Repose):
This is chill hockey. We don’t keep score. There is bumping and nudging, but rarely a fight, and the rules few:
1. Offsides are enforced.
2. If the puck leaves the surface, whoever gets it, gets to play it.
3. Don’t be a jerk.
Hockey has a slew of other rules regarding tripping, high sticking, and cross-checking, but in the pick-up game, those rules fall under #3 — don’t be a jerk. When new individual players arrive and they deviate from these rules, they are quickly and efficiently educated. Yeah, we don’t play that way.
We often take for granted the power of what the author there calls “social momentum”. How often has something been explained as “it’s the way we’ve always done it”. When you bring new people into an organization, be they new employees or clients, they don’t know about the whole system of things that are “just the way you’ve always done it”. They are reflexive actions for you, they are an unknown world for them.
Take the time to explain why and how you do things, and maybe they’ll make themselves a part of your culture instead of fighting it.
